


;; though it's the end of the world

by Black



Category: Undertale
Genre: Blood, Body Horror, Death, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-14 22:50:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5761900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black/pseuds/Black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>don't blame yourself, now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thank you, I'll say goodbye soon

**Author's Note:**

> Sans and Mettaton NEO talk before the inevitable.  
> inspired by Porter Robinson's Goodbye to a World.

he smiles.  
but it's sad. 

Mettaton NEO stands before him,  
tall,  
but not a chance.

he's always been handsome but god oh god now he's handsome and terrifying - that black hair pushed back to reveal machinery to reveal all unfinished and Alphys is tearing down into the lab, packing as many monsters as she can into the elevator at a time before sending them down. they'll encounter the amalgamates but they shouldn't be hostile. they've just been fed. they should be fine. she'll explain later. the truth isn't as dark as the demon approaching. 

"Sans, when you're done, follow us down!"

the elevator doors close.  
Mettaton smiles. 

"you're not meeting her down there, are you?"

_never do._

"was it that obvious?" the skeleton shrugs, pocketing his hands into his hoodie and burying his skull against his brother's scarf. his shoulders go slack with exhaustion and all of a sudden he's just so tired. so fucking tired. "you should....really go down there though, Neo." he looks up, sockets black, black, pin pricked with white and they're quivering, "they'll kill you. that body is shoddy." 

Mettaton laughs, quirking his hip and resting his hand on it (the less, shooty hand). his soul, his soul pulsates in the core of him and Sans thinks it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. the robot stoops down, giving him the calmest look he's ever seen on anything knowing that death is soon approaching. he wishes he could be that calm, that at ease. "i know darling," he says after a moment, reaching forward to touch the red fabric pooled around his neck, "but i need to lead them away from the lab. i need to prevent any more pointless death." hesitation. "of monsters  _or_ humans. if they get out of the underground, oh...sweetheart...they - " 

his voice box malfunctions for a moment and clips out, but Sans can guess what he's implying. 

"Mettaton," he leans forward into the robot's proximity, bumping their foreheads together with a soft click, "remember how i called you a prestigious prick?" he doesn't let the robot answer, "i lied. i like you a metta _ton_." and there's a small bit of laughter between them - the robot's voice glitches out and Sans chokes on the realization that again  _again_ he's saying good bye. Mettaton returns the gesture of affection, resting his forehead against the skeleton's own as he had witnessed Papyrus having done many times before. 

there's a wheeze, a screech, a whimper from some monster outside, met with an eerie silence and Mettaton is standing now, closing his eyes and Sans watches him compact. listens to the mechanic scrapes the gears the grinding and he's a box again, screen flashing with a pixel heart before sputtering, "you should leave now. they're coming. meet me back here when this is all over."

Sans nods despite knowing that there will be no reunion.  
he has suspicion that Mettaton knows too. 

his eye flickers and pulsates and there's nothing but blue and the sound of screeching as he falls backwards, time wrapping around him and carrying him across the hot lands. it's warm and white - though when he hits the tile he is nothing akin to comforted. his skull bounces with a loud crack and he makes no effort to rise. laying on his back in the judgement hall - eyes fixated on the stained glass on the colors on the warmth the warmth...

 

he can hear the soft pop of the explosion in the distance later and it's  
only than does he sit up, power flooding him  
to the very core.  


they approach.


	2. And if it's true I will surround you.......

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't deviate.  
> You'll regret it.

in one timeline, one go around; he makes the mistake of going back.

he wishes he hadn't.

the image never truly leaves him.  
even after the world resets and he is waking up again -

time envelops him after the explosion, singing sweetly his name as it carried him across the capital. warm, warm, willing. twisting, turning, and this time he lands on his feet…

...a sickening crunch following the drop.

there's an arm there - scorched and riddled with frayed wires. it doesn't move, never moves. it's just curled into a fist, fingers unfurling as he takes his foot from it.

there's a leg to the right of him - socket popped and metal melted in on itself. the shape of it something ghastly, he only recognizes what body part it is because of the (now blackened) pink stocking. to the left, the torso lay scattered and torn open, as if something had ripped into it without hesitation. the pink soul that he had been so entranced with earlier is nowhere to be found, the liquid the inside now the color of burnt sugar. sticky and cold, he presumes.

 _Monster_.

it takes him a moment to locate the head - eye blown open and glassy, in mute horror as if his last moments were of crippling pain, could robots feel pain? the jaw is burnt and practically ripped from the sockets, the synthetic hair is singed and stringy and Sans can't feel his bones they're cold and dead just like this room beeping beeping with the distant call of the core and

it’s dark and he can't bring himself to touch anything and he should have never come back because his imagination was much kinder to him than reality.

the judgement hall is welcomed and he didn't even realize he had teleported back. bathed in the colors of the stained glass he pounds the floor with his boney fingers and rips at the grout, only successful in soothing the ache for a moment before the overwhelming anger swallows him again.

there's eyes in the hall now. a sputter of feet and his jackyl smile is lying and the game is prompting him to speak as it comes into view.

 _Monster_.

 

bones through the stomach - the blood is sweet and the way their eyes glaze over does nothing for him. the room resets and each time and heaviness shifts, living in the marrow living in the

pits of his sockets.

blue with the unbridled rage of a robot wrecked in a quiet room and a brother taken too soon. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a one shot he said laughing with salad


	3. and give life to a world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> time passes.

Sans wakes up.

the blankets are pooled at the edge of the bed. his sockets are pounding - his vision is fuzzy for a moment but it comes fluttering back through the static through the haze and he's 

dragging himself from the comfort from the warm embrace of wool and cotton. Sans eyes the wall behind his bed as he's numbly pulling on his hoodie - something cold something that should be akin to horror nestling into his bones.

the tally marks in the plaster total up to a hundred and twenty seven -

but who's really counting anymore?

 

he leaves without adding another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter after this and it's done. this wasn't supposed to be any more than a chapter but shrugs.


	4. ...that's our own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> again.

...he smiles.  
but it's empty.

Mettaton NEO stands before him,  
tall,  
but not a chance.

...Alphys is tearing down into the lab, packing as many monsters as she can into the elevator at a time before sending them down - Sans is too focused on the way that Neo's face scrunches up as he watches the last of the monsters shoved down into the darkness. the unknown. he almost misses the 

"Sans, when you're done, follow us down!"

and the elevator doors closing. like clockwork.

Mettaton smiles.

"you're not meeting her down there, are you?"

 _never do_.

"was it obvious?" his voice is void of humor void of anything and his eyes drop to the ground. it's no use asking Neo to join the others in the lab. he knows they both know and Sans can feel the burning deep in his sockets the urge to claw at the empty space the urge to dig his boney fingers in rip and pull and shred. he doesn't want this power anymore he doesn't want this job this responsibility 

he wants to go back to laying amongst the echo flowers with the robot standing in front of him, whispering promises of escape whispering fears dreams and of hope of anger of - he can feel the ghosts of those fingers on his ribs singing so sweetly against the bone. trembling. desperate. there was a lot the underground didn't know about their superstar and pop quiz extra credit time the correct answer is 

that Mettaton was scared too.

there's silence. 

while Sans usually fills the air with a bad joke. a plea. an apology. he can't bring himself to say a word. he's too tired. too exhausted. he knows that Mettaton will be nothing but a heap of burning wire of melted metal - he diviates from the usual and leans into the robot's side, finding comfort in the clicks and hums that resonate from within him.

an arm encircles him and that familiar presence leans down, their foreheads meeting with a soft thud. there's something between them - Sans can feel it clatter behind his teeth and if he had a tongue it'd taste like iron right about now. "take care sweetheart," Neo whispers and Sans almost loses it right there. 

he leaves before Neo boxes himself back up, pretty and wrapped in shuddering lights just ready to be unwrapped ready to be cut away cut open 

fuse lit with a single strike of a knife.

his skull bounces with a loud crack on the judgement hall floor and he makes no effort to rise. laying on his back - eyes fixated on the stained glass on the colors on the warmth the warmth...

 _Mettaton's fingers found his and they laced they tangled and those eyes those pink eyes pulsated almost adoringly under the makeshift stars above. Sans looked into them and found them to be alive. bright and writhing. full of hope. "Sansy," he sung softly and the flowers whispered around him -_ he longed to hear it again like that, his name  _\- "tell me about the surface again, how it'll be when we leave."_

he can hear the soft pop of the explosion in the distance later and 

his bones are cold. he can't bring himself to sit up. he's too heavy too tired so he waits, splayed out and bathed lovingly in mute horror.

they approach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and I'm done.  
> it was going to be happy but haha.  
> good night.


End file.
